The Annual AIA Maryland Design Awards Program serves to recognize excellence in design by Maryland architects worldwide and for work in Maryland, and aims to raise public consciousness of the Architect’s role in shaping the quality of life through design excellence. This year, the jury was drawn to the projects that embraced context. Reflecting on the Branch Avenue Sector Plan, the jury wrote, “This project inspired one of the more interesting discussions of our deliberations. We came to recognize the importance of this kind of participatory process as the new norm for community engagement in forming a less automobile dependent built form in the United States. Beyond this, it is the overall design quality of these outcomes – whether because of, or despite the participatory process – that brought us to celebrate the outcome with a Citation.”

The project is focused on communities in transition along the Branch Avenue (MD Rt. 5) corridor between the terminal green line metro station and Southern Maryland Hospital in Prince George’s County, Maryland. These communities, and their existing commercial centers, share common opportunities and constraints and are part of an important commuter corridor. Future BRAC growth at the adjacent Andrews Air Force Base, the planned expansion of medical services and office space at Southern Maryland Hospital, and a proposed LRT / BRT transit line on the corridor create opportunities for reshaping growth and revitalization within existing communities along the corridor. The new station area plans provide a strategic framework for redeveloping aging strip retail and village centers into compact, moderate density, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, and transit-oriented places, each with a unique identity and sense of place informed by the communities they serve.

For full coverage of this year’s AIA Maryland Excellence in Design Awards, please click here.